The Veterans Affairs Department is
weighing whether to add several diseases to the list of health
conditions presumed in Vietnam veterans to be caused by exposure to
Agent Orange.

A VA working group is studying a
report issued in March by the Institute of Medicine to determine whether
bladder cancer, hypothyroidism and Parkinson’s-like symptoms — illnesses
the IOM said may be more strongly linked to exposure than previously
thought — should automatically make a Vietnam veteran eligible for VA
disability benefits and health care.

According to Dr. Ralph Erickson, VA's
chief consultant for post-deployment health services, the group will
make a recommendations to VA Secretary Robert McDonald on whether the
diseases should be added to a list of 15 already in place.

“We are in the midst of a
deliberative process, carefully looking at all the IOM committee put in
the report and additional information that has come out since,” Erickson
said. “We will be putting tougher a VA response that will be brought
before senior leaders and ultimately brought before the secretary.”

The process could take up to two
years, a VA spokeswoman added.

Roughly 1 million Vietnam veterans
are enrolled in the VA health system, according to the department. Based
on a review of data for one year, 5,484 of these veterans have been
diagnosed with bladder cancer, 15,983 suffer from hypothyroidism and an
estimated 1,833 have Parkinson’s-like symptoms.

The working group also is looking
into the role, if any, Agent Orange exposure has played in the
development of hypertension in Vietnam veterans. According to VA,
307,324 Vietnam veterans in the Veterans Health Administration have high
blood pressure.

“Hypertension has been a question
that has been asked,” Erickson said. “The cohort of men and women who
heroically served their country in uniform and went to Vietnam are in
their 60s, 70s and 80s, and these individuals, merely because of their
age, are starting to accrue chronic diseases that come with aging. It’s
a delicate matter to tease out whether someone has hypertension because
of their age or whether it would be related to an exposure to Agent
Orange.”

The most recent IOM report actually
downgraded spina bifida in the children of Vietnam veterans, saying
research does not support a previously held belief that the
disease occurred in offspring of exposed veterans at higher rates.

But the change of spina bifida from
"limited or suggestive evidence" it is related to exposure to
“inadequate or insufficient” evidence should not affect disability
payments to the 1,153 descendants of Vietnam veterans who receive them,
Veterans Benefits Administration senior adviser for compensation
services Brad Flohr said.

VA recommends that veterans who have
an illness they believe is related to Agent Orange exposure file a
claim; they are considered on a case-by-case basis if the illness is not
on the presumptive condition list.

Should new diseases be added to the
list, the regulation would go into effect 30 days after it is published
in the Federal Register.

If a veteran dies of a condition
determined to be a presumptive condition after the veteran’s death, VA
will provide dependency and indemnity compensation benefits to eligible
spouses, children and parents of that veteran.